SAGMEISTERBANTJESGARAMOND SHERMARTENS

CONTENTS

KAREL MARTENS 4 - 5

CLAUDE GARAMOND 6 - 7

STEFAN SAGMEISTER 8 - 9

MARIAN BANTJES 10 - 11

PAULA SHER 12 - 13

TYPOGRAPHY HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN, RESPECT IT.

4

TYPO Karel Martens

LET THE OBJECT SPEAK

The basic problems of typography do no change, just as hum

an beings go on reproducing themselves in sim

ilarly sized and constrained bodies.

One could w

rite the history of typography from 1450 on as a struggle betw

een texts and designers, whose w

hims and vanities have often led

them to butchery, indifference, ego-driven overem

phasis and profligacy.

This struggle is nowhere m

ore evident today than in the Nether lands. A rich country still, with a w

ell-provided cultural superstructure,

its predominant ethos of a high regard for social usefulness has benefited designers, even as Dutch fine artists have suffered

from the new

economic string encies. A particular m

ixture of social application and individual licence has given birth to the

phenomenon of “Dutch design”, fostered by sw

ooning Anglo-American spectators.

Any discussion of decent treatment of text and Dutch typography should start w

ith a salute to the matchless and

apparently endless stream of book typographers w

ho work for publishing houses. Am

ong the older generation are

Wim

Mol, Harry Sierm

an, Alje Olthof, Karel Treebus, Joost van de W

oestijne. Then there are a few typographers

now in m

iddle age who have w

orked across the range of tasks, starting out as grid-obeying Modernists

and maturing into a typography that respects and uses traditional values, but w

hich explores and risks,

while adhering to the m

eaning of texts and images. Am

ong the first names that com

e to mind are

Walter Nikkels and Ka rel M

artens. Within the Netherlands, these designers have som

e reputation;

outside they are more or less unknow

n. Martens m

ight be cited as an exemplary instance of

someone w

hose work is rooted, not interested in fashion – and fresh.

On finishing as a student at the Arnhem

school of art in 1961, Martens becam

e a

freelance graphic designer, as he has remained ever since. Although able to w

ork

over the whole field, he has specialised in typography, especially for books,

and he is also a comm

itted and prolific maker of free graphic w

ork. The

juxtaposition – and separation – of these activities is an enlivening factor

in his production.

His first m

ajor client was the publisher Van Loghum

Slaterus.

Martens designed cool, geom

etrical images for covers and

left-ranging books, it was also a dead end. This w

as a

period of general crisis for post-1945 Modernism

,

which by the late 1960s w

as finding that blind pur-

suit of the economic m

iracle and of bureaucratic

rationalism w

as not enough. In keeping with

the times, the sm

all firm of Van Loghum

Slaterus was incorporated into the

large combine of Kluw

er.

5

TYPO

The work of the Dutch designer Karel Martens is rooted in m

aterials rather than the ravishing image! How to group text and

images in waysthat m

ake sense? What size of type? How m

uch space between the words, between the lines? What length of line?

The basic problems of typography do no change, just as hum

an beings go on reproducing themselves in sim

ilarly sized and constrained bodies.

One could w

rite the history of typography from 1450 on as a struggle betw

een texts and designers, whose w

hims and vanities have often led

them to butchery, indifference, ego-driven overem

phasis and profligacy.

This struggle is nowhere m

ore evident today than in the Nether lands. A rich country still, with a w

ell-provided cultural superstructure,

its predominant ethos of a high regard for social usefulness has benefited designers, even as Dutch fine artists have suffered

from the new

economic string encies. A particular m

ixture of social application and individual licence has given birth to the

phenomenon of “Dutch design”, fostered by sw

ooning Anglo-American spectators.

Any discussion of decent treatment of text and Dutch typography should start w

ith a salute to the matchless and

apparently endless stream of book typographers w

ho work for publishing houses. Am

ong the older generation are

Wim

Mol, Harry Sierm

an, Alje Olthof, Karel Treebus, Joost van de W

oestijne. Then there are a few typographers

now in m

iddle age who have w

orked across the range of tasks, starting out as grid-obeying Modernists

and maturing into a typography that respects and uses traditional values, but w

hich explores and risks,

while adhering to the m

eaning of texts and images. Am

ong the first names that com

e to mind are

Walter Nikkels and Ka rel M

artens. Within the Netherlands, these designers have som

e reputation;

outside they are more or less unknow

n. Martens m

ight be cited as an exemplary instance of

someone w

hose work is rooted, not interested in fashion – and fresh.

On finishing as a student at the Arnhem

school of art in 1961, Martens becam

e a

freelance graphic designer, as he has remained ever since. Although able to w

ork

over the whole field, he has specialised in typography, especially for books,

and he is also a comm

itted and prolific maker of free graphic w

ork. The

juxtaposition – and separation – of these activities is an enlivening factor

in his production.

His first m

ajor client was the publisher Van Loghum

Slaterus.

Martens designed cool, geom

etrical images for covers and

left-ranging books, it was also a dead end. This w

as a

period of general crisis for post-1945 Modernism

,

which by the late 1960s w

as finding that blind pur-

suit of the economic m

iracle and of bureaucratic

rationalism w

as not enough. In keeping with

the times, the sm

all firm of Van Loghum

Slaterus was incorporated into the

large combine of Kluw

er.

Written by: Stanley L. Jones

6

TYPO Claude Garamond

7

TYPO

Looking at the pre-19th-century typefaces that are still in wide-spread use today is a little like visiting a modern re-creation of an Anglo-Saxon village. If you ignore the aircraft passing overhead you can easily imagine yourself back in the first millennium. But however absorbed the inhabitants seem in their daily tasks, you know that at the end of the day they will take off their coarsely woven garments, slip into some Lycra, and head home, probably picking up a takeaway and video en route. However convincing it all looks, in reality it’s an elaborate fake.

And that’s just how it is in the world of type. You may think you’re working with actual letter forms drawn in the 16th century, but they’re actually a 20th-century re-creation based on the originals, or what were thought to be the originals. It can get confusing. Plantin was based on a face cut by the French type designer Robert Granjon (working 1545-88); the printer Christo-pher Plantin himself never used the original source type. Janson, designed in 1937, is named after a Dutchman, Anton Janson, who had nothing to do with the face at all; the design was inspired by the work of the Hungarian Nicholas Kis (1650-1702). The various versions of Baskerville are all 20th-century work; the earliest one was not even based directly on Baskerville’s type, but on what came to be known later as Fry’s Baskerville, a piece of 18th-century intellectual piracy.

“Garamond had long been regarded as one of the type designers par excellence of the century that followed Gutenberg’s invention of movable type”

In 1924 George Jones designed a face for the Linotype company which he called Granjon, but the design he used as inspiration turned out to be the work of Robert Granjon’s fellow countryman and contemporary Claude Garamond (c. 1500-61). And the typefaces that bear Garamond’s name — well, as the saying goes, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Garamond had long been regarded as one of the type designers par excellence of the century that followed Gutenberg’s invention of movable type. Using Aldus Manutius’s roman type as his inspiration, Garamond had cut his first letters for a 1530 edition of Erasmus. It was so well regarded that the French king Francois I commissioned Garamond to design an exclusive face, the Grecs du Roi. Although Garamond’s typefaces were very popular during his lifetime and much copied, as for many of the early type designers the work didn’t bring him much financial reward. When he died, his widow was forced to sell his punches, and his typefaces were scattered throughout Europe. Garamond the typeface gradu-ally dropped out of sight, to disappear for nearly two centuries.

In the 19th century the French National Printing Office, looking for a typeface to call its own, took a liking to the one that had been used by the 17th-century Royal Printing Office, operating under the supervision of Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu called his type the Caractères de l’Université, and used it to print, among other things, his own written works. The 19th-century office pronounced the face to be the work of Claude Garamond, and the Garamond revival began.

But it was only after the First World War that the bandwagon really picked up momentum. Suddenly every type foundry started producing its own version of Garamond. American Type Founders (ATF) were first, and then in 1921 Frederic Goudy offered his interpretation, Garamont. Monotype in England brought out theirs in 1924, and Linotype replied with Granjon. There were yet more versions on the market by the onset of the Second World War, most notably Stempel Garamond by the German foundry of that name.

“As a printer he was unremarkable, but as a designer and punch-cutter he was unparalleled, cutting the smallest type ever seen, an italic and roman of a size less than what would now be 5pt.”

Back at ATF, the company that had started the rush, Henry Lewis Bullen, librarian of the company’s formidable archive, had nagging doubts about his company’s product. One day, as recalled by his assistant Paul Beaujon, he declared: “You know, this is definitely not a sixteenth century type … I have never found a sixteenth century book which contains this face. Anyone who discovers where this thing comes from will make a great reputation.”Beaujon wrote an article about the Garamond faces for The Fleuron, an English typographical journal. The pages had been proofed and the presses were ready to roll when Beaujon, visiting the North Library of the British Museum to check some dates, happened to glance at one of the items in the Bagford Collection of title pages. And there was the source type for all the 20th-cen-tury Garamonds.

Except that this typeface wasn’t by Garamond at all. It was the work of another Frenchman, Jean Jannon (1580-1658), a 17th-century printer and punch-cutter. As a printer he was unremarkable, but as a designer and punch-cutter he was unparalleled, cutting the smallest type ever seen, an italic and roman of a size less than what would now be 5pt. Frequently in trouble with the authorities for his Protestant beliefs, Jannon had eventually found work at the Calvinist Academy at Sedan, in northern France.

Written by: Camilla Nordstöm

And the typefaces that bear Garamond’s name - well, as the saying goes, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

8

TYPO Mariel Bantjes

“I’vecome

close to working with

a couple of agencies

for very

BIGbrands,

but either

the money isn’t there orthe

agencyjust

has a stupid idea that I’m not interested

in workingon.

Like they want typewith a

bunchbunchbunchbunch ofbullshit coming off it.”

“Yawn. Go away.”

9

TYPO

9

TYPO

John L. Walters What’s your earliest graphic memory?

Marian Bantjes I can remember scribbling on walls … probably when I was two or three. I remember a book with little drawings in the margins, one of which was of some beetles (and this is how I imagined The Beatles, as a band of beetles like the drawings in the book). When my mother died, I reclaimed a package of old drawings and writings, and was overjoyed to see them again.

JLW: When did you fi rst start to make stuff, and when did it occur to you that you could do it as a grown-up?

MB: I’ve drawn for as long as I can remember, and written as long as I could write. My mother was very good at encouraging us to be creative – her favourite thing to do with kids was provide a big roll of paper and some pens / crayons / paints /what-ever. We also made a lot of things: out of papier mache, clay, toothpicks and – my favourite – cardboard boxes. Mum really frowned on anything that was a kit or had a prescribed outcome.I went to art school for a year before dropping out. I did for a while think I could be a ‘commercial artist’ (I’d never heard of a ‘graphic designer’) though my concept of what that was, was vague – except that it involved earning a living, and was less prestigious. At some point I gave up on this idea of being an Artist. Then I fell into typesetting and my path was laid.

How did you learn about typography?

MB: At the publisher Hartley & Marks, I helped out with paste-up and they trained me on XyWrite, a word-processing program that was a lot like HTML. First I was recreating a pencil-drawn, marked-up layout from the designer, so what I made had to be what was specifi ed; then there were basic rules about typography (how you treat small caps, how you kern, etc.). Then I learned about margins and gutters and balancing pages and avoiding widows and orphans … My job was to get it right, and I enjoyed this immensely. This is rare now. Most designers leave the ‘tedious details’ to juniors. If my career falls apart, I would love to work as a typesetter again for some really good designer. It’s very satisfying. When I taught introductory typography, this is how I taught: right and wrong. But I was largely clueless about design, designers, history, theory, all of that. Then in 2004 I was asked to teach a class in typography. I felt it was important to teach it from a historical perspective. I had two weeks to prepare, so I was learning and preparing my notes all at the same time, trying to stay ahead. And some of it I did know. I’d heard these names, I had some sense of the age of various typefaces, but it had been like having half a puzzle, and all the other pieces just fell into place. However I do like to tell people that I learned from the best – Robert Bringhurst. I typeset at least one of his poetry books, and I worked on promotions for The Elements of Typographic Style. Robert’s mark-up was impeccable, and one of my proudest moments was setting one of his tumble-of-letters pieces, which I was doing ‘blind’ (in XyWrite) and getting it almost perfect on the fi rst setting. He was very impressed. Though, to be fair, I really learned most of what I know about typo graphy from Vic Marks.

JLW: When did you become seriously interested in graphic design?

MB: I think it must have been around the rise of desktop publishing. Also when I became a designer, and I started to need to explain my decisions to clients, I took a lot more notice of what those decisions were and why.

JLW: And when did you become aware of other designers?

MB: I was aware of who else was in Vancouver, and some awareness of the Americans as well, but only the biggest names. When I was learning the history of typography for my class, that helped a lot; being on Speak Up helped a huge amount, because I had to fi nd out who I was talking to; and when I started researching designers I wanted to work with, that was another step as well. At Digitopolis, I had this incredibly distorted view of the ‘hierarchy’ of design – I felt I was about three or four from the top of the Vancouver scene, and I thought there were only a few more steps to the very top of all design in the whole world. The more I learned, the more insignifi cant I got.

JLW: So how did you move into running your own company, Digitopolis, and was it fun / diffi cult / interesting / stressful / fulfi lling?

MB: Oh, it was all of the above.Basically, I had a major falling-out with my boss at Hartley & Marks. My typographic skills were exceptional but I had obvious gaps (like never having worked in colour, or with images, or having any idea of the printing process) when I went to look for work. An editor friend suggested we start a design business. We got lucky with a couple of big clients and the fi rst two years were crazy. I was the designer, and my learning curve was through the roof. There was crying, there was elation, there was fear, but mostly a lot of fun – everything was a fi rst.Then we grew bigger and it became a kind of machine. Computers, offi ces, employ-ees, clients, more, more, more … and the work was no longer this adventure, it was just work that never ended. I had ideas to do work like I hadn’t seen before (mainly in the vein of what I’m doing now). I’d make these elaborate things, and people loved them but, as my business partner put it to me, ‘This is all very nice, but nobody wants it.’

MB: I started to have serious trouble with my business partner. We had been very good friends, then only friends, then only partners. I was trying to think of a way of tricking her into buying me out when she offered to! By the time I left, I hated design. I envisioned myself as an illustrator, but it was vague. All I knew was that I had been playing around with ornamental work for fi ve or six years, and I was starting to see hints of it around in design. I knew if I didn’t do it then, I’d end up in the wake of a wave.

JLW: So when you moved to contract work with Digitopolis, did that free up lots of time for your new direction?

MB: No. I have always had diffi culty working at a mind-numbing job and fi nding the energy for true creativity at the same time. It wasn’t until my contract was up that everything just magically burst forth all at once. The fancy vector art in particular… I don’t know where that came from.

JLW: Was Poster # 1 the fi rst serious result of this outpouring?

MB: Yes. It was the ‘aha’ moment for the direction I wanted to go. It was pretty, but also a little edgy and a little weird, which kept it from being too girly. I still like it, six years later.

JLW: Any other major life changes at this time?

MB: Yes and no. I experienced a bona fi de midlife crisis: I turned 40 in 2003, and really questioned the direction and meaning of my life. I moved out of Vancouver the same year. My mother became mentally lost to us in early 2005, and died at the end of 2006. I split up with my boyfriend of twelve years in 2007. But professionally I was happier (and, eventually, more successful) than I had ever been. Through Speak Up, I got a whole new set of friends, and the centre of my life shifted from Canada to the United States.

JLW: Was blogging a way of getting involved in the wider world of design? Did it make up for the isolation of working on your own?

MB: In 2003 I started spending a lot of time on Speak Up and was made an Author in November. It was a big surprise, as I thought I hated graphic design. Speak Up taught me that I was passionate about it, and knew a lot.And yes, this was my social life. My two best friends in the world are Gillian Muir (not in design) who I’ve known since I was three, and Debbie Millman, who I met on Speak Up. It was a really big deal for me socially and professionally.

(see full interwiew at our web page: typomag.com)

Interview by: John L. Walters, 2009

JLW: Whendid

youdecide

tomake the

break?

TYPO

9

10

TYPO Paula Scher

For more than three decades Paula Scher has been at the forefront of graphic design. Iconic, smart and unabash-edly populist, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

Scher has been a principal in the New York office of the distinguished international design consultancy Pentagram since 1991. She began her career as an art director in the 1970s and early ‘80s, when her eclectic approach to typography became highly influential. In the mid-1990s her landmark identity for The Public Theater fused high and low into a wholly new symbology for cultural institutions, and her recent architectural collaborations have re-imagined the urban landscape as a dynamic environment of dimensional graphic design. Her graphic identities for Citibank and Tiffany & Co. have become case studies for the contemporary regeneration of classic American brands.

Scher has developed identities, packaging for a broad range of clients that includes, among others, The New York Times Magazine, Perry Ellis, Bloomberg, Target, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the New 42nd Street, the New York Botanical Garden, and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. In 1996 Scher’s widely imitated identity for the Public Theater won the coveted Beacon Award for integrated corporate design strat-egy. She serves on the board of The Public Theater, and is a frequent design contributor to The New York Times, GQ and other publications.

In 1998 Scher was named to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she received the prestigious Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. She has served on the national board of AIGA and was presi-dent of its New York chapter from 1998 to 2000. In 2001 she received the profession’s highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in recognition of her distinguished achievements and contributions to the field. She is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; the Denver Art Museum; and the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.Scher holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and a Doctor of Fine Arts Honoris Causa from the Corcoran College of Art and Design. She has lectured and exhibited all over the world, and her teaching career includes over two decades at the School of Visual Arts, along with positions at the Cooper Union, Yale University and the Tyler School of Art.She has authored numerous articles on design-related subjects for the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, PRINT, Graphis and other publica-tions, and in 2002 Princeton Architectural Press published her career monograph Make It Bigger.

Written by: Johanna Hugh

◊

◊

HALL OF FEMME

For more than three decades Paula Scher has been at the forefront of graphic design. Iconic, smart and unabashedly populist, her images have

entered into the American vernacular.

11

TYPO

12

TYPO Stefan SagmeisterTYPO Stefan SagmeisterStefan SagmeisterTYPO

Photo: Søren Hornum

13

TYPO

To use a word like “legend” in connection with Stefan Sagmeister does not seem too far a stretch. It’s not only that this Austrian designer has received nearly every important international design award, along with a Grammy for his design of the Talking Heads boxed set (and 5 more nomina-tions). Or his diverse range of clients, from Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones to HBO and the Guggenheim Museum. Or the countless solo shows on the work of his New York City design company, Sagmeister Inc, in every major design capital across the world. Or… well… we could go on for a very long time. But instead, Behance sat down with Sagmeister to hear directly from the mouth of a master on staying small, taking a human approach, and life lessons.

Most companies equate success with growth; like waistlines in ancient times, size becomes an indication of prosperity. But Sagmeister believes that remaining small has been the key to retaining his integrity as a designer and making ideas happen. He explains, “The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our fi nan-cial independence from our clients. We actually have a rather good track record, because we do select projects carefully. Most of our ideas don’t eat dust but glimpse the light of day because we fi nd it much more helpful to spend some serious time and effort before we start working on a project, rather than suffer through it afterwards.”

“So many viewers are left untouched by those machine-like visuals out there - a more human approach seemed a smart alternative.”

This lean and nimble business philosophy likely contributes to Sagmeister’s courage to buck trends and move his company in the opposite direction of where design is shifting. As he tells us, “In the early nineties, when the modernism revival started and many designers opted for cold, slick design, it seemed a natural reaction for us to go the other way. My feeling was that so many viewers are left untouched by those machine-like visuals out there; that a more human approach seemed a smart alterna-tive.” But even visionaries need a little process in their lives, and Sagmeister Inc. is not above simple procedures for staying organized: “We don’t procrastinate, and generally start working on a project right away. We keep time sheets and fl ow charts.”

In addition to citing a fascinating range of outside infl uences, Sagmeister proves that sometimes the best ideas are generated from a source very close to home - ourselves. In his case, it was his own journal that spawned his latest success, proving that professionals should not shy away from the highly personal. He tells us, “By far the most interesting project I have been involved in the last years is a series of typographic works that came out of a list I found in my diary under the title, ‘Things I have learned in my life so far.’ Every one of these pieces was published, and so far they have appeared as French and Portuguese billboards, a Japanese annual report, on German TV, in Austrian magazines, as a New York direct mailer, and an American poster campaign. The series was infl uenced by my grandfather, by American artist Jenny Holzer, as well as the rustic wooden signs available in tourist stores all over my hometown of Bregenz in Austria.”

For our sake, we hope Sagmeister continues to share lessons from his unparalleled life.

Interview by: Stanley Newman

Graphic Design: Søren HornumNorges Kreative Fagskole

36065455 - 2APrint: Øien Indergaard

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